Furious Dees to appeal
‘Outrage’ at suspension
Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin says the “fabric of the game has been challenged” and the “outrage” in the AFL community after Jacob van Rooyen’s two-game suspension demanded the club appeal the decision.
The comments came after premiership-winning Demon defender Jake Lever said he was a “little bit confused” given the mistimed spoil was deemed a football action but still penalised severely.
On Tuesday night, the AFL tribunal upheld the match review officer’s grading of careless conduct, high contact and high impact for the young Demon’s mistimed spoiling attempt on Gold Coast’s Charlie Ballard.
Melbourne argued that van Rooyen’s sole intention was to contest the ball, that at no stage did he intend to cause harm to Ballard and the incident was merely a football accident.
Goodwin said the decision was “disappointing and frustrating” and it was up to Melbourne to challenge it on behalf of the rest of the competition to get “clarity”, and van Rooyen would be picked to play this week.
“Clearly, it’s disappointing and frustrating. There’s no doubt about that,” Goodwin said. “And I think when you see the outrage in our supporter base, you see the outrage of the footy community, clearly you look at that and it’s either unjust or the fabric of the game is getting challenged.
“And, you know, for us, it’s important that we probably go down that path of looking at why that’s the case and take (it) a little bit further and we’ll look at all avenues about how we go about doing that and get all the information that we can.
“But clearly there’s a level of frustration, level of disappointment for a whole range of different reasons.
“Clearly, the laws state that you can contest the ball, and Jacob’s only thing that he was looking at was contesting the ball. The fabric of the game has been challenged, clearly.”
Lever, who has to spoil countless times during a game, said he was unsure what the decision meant for other players put in the same situation as van Rooyen.
“It did look like a bit of a football accident and as much as he got him in the head, I think Charlie Ballard was fine,” Lever said on SEN.
“But I think (I am) a little bit confused, absolutely, because I am probably caught in that situation three or four times throughout every game where you are in front, the ball is kicked over your head and you are going to have to go and try and make a contest otherwise your opponent is just going to stand there and take a mark and kick a goal.
“You never want him (van Rooyen) to change the way that he’s played because that’s why we love him and I hope that he is not as confused as a lot of people out there would be.”
Goodwin said everyone was conscious of protecting players’ heads but “there’s always going to be incidental incidents” and that included in aerial contests.